Miguel Sousa Tavares : Good evening, Gonçalo Amaral, thank you for this interview. I'll start in a way that will perhaps surprise you, but your book surprised me a lot immediately with the first sentence because it starts, I don't know whether you recall it, with "On a Sunday of Carnaval, shots woke me up, hunter were trying to shoot rabbits without defense. Well, Carnaval in February or in March ? And rabbits' hunt finishes in December, this can't be true.

Gonçalo Amaral :It can, I was expecting that observation, I know that you are a hunter. But in this area they hunt rabbits after hunting is forbidden and this is a problem, they're clandestine.

MST :But clandestine use to hunt at the end of the afternoon, in the week-end, in certain places... You live in Portimão and are a PJ inspector...

GA :Only two or three people know that I live there...

MST :Now let's speak of the other thing that amazed me at the beginning of the book, about how starts the investigation. You are dining with a friend in Portimão, where you coordinate the DIC, you're eating the pollicipes and the shrimps of the coast, good taste, and you receive a phone call saying that a little British girl has disappeared in Praia da Luz. I think that in your place you must have been aware immediately that it was a case which could be very serious, paedophilia, Algarve, tourism, English, etc, etc. Why didn't you go immediately to the crime scene and gave instructions to the PJ vigil, let me finish, to say to whoever goes there to be very careful gathering the evidence ?GA : It's like this, we have many cases in Portimão, and the PJ coordinator could not, would not be present, it's like this now, the PJ works really well, has experts, technicians, it is established to function well, it doesn't need the coordinator to be there, the coordinator has other things to do, besides to go along to the police vigil, as you can guess, we have many cases. MST : That was not an ordinary case, so wasn't that justified ? You were slightly more than 20 kilometers far from the crime scene.

GA : Perhaps within a week or two it could have seemed justified, the problem is that we have many things to do.

MST : You said it yourself, the ones who gathered evidence, whoever was there, did not do a very good job.

GA : A normal job within the perspective of an abduction, the theft of a person in this case, the crime scene is inspected as if it were a theft, the "item" so to speak that was there was removed. About the procedure I think that PJ is reconsidering, but it has to do with the perspective approach when inspecting the crime scene.

MST : Didn't you think that you had to go there immediately?

GA : This wasn't the issue, the director of the police doesn't have to go to the crime scene, the coordinator has to control and that's what I did.

MST : Perhaps it would have been better to go there, didn't you regret later not to have been there ?

GA : No, I don't, police professionals are experts, technicians, I wouldn't put pressure on them when they're working and have to concentrate on their different functions like gathering fingerprints and taking photos, my hierarchy would have criticized me, I have no doubt about it.

MST : For example, at certain time you regret not knowing how the English, the MC parents were dressed on that night and you say it is a pity they took so many photos during the day, but not at night?

GA :No, they didn't take pictures at night or those just didn't show up.

MST : They didn't showed up.

GA : If you allow me, I'm under an injunction and can't talk directly about the case, I don't know if I'm not going to break the injunction, please help me a little bit...

MST : I'll help, an injunction is an order by a court of law, I read the sentence which says that you cannot talk publicly about your book's thesis, but you can talk about other theses and you can talk about other circumstances of the case. I asked you this because when you said you regret that there are no photos showing how the English were dressed that night, you had a man in charge of taking photos, so why did he not take photos of the English people also? How no one recalls to take photos of everything? GA : Yes, such mistakes happen a lot and in many cases, I remember, it's in the book also, the lady on the video brushing on the outside the shutters of the little girl's room without any protection, today the experts, the police enter the crime scene with special clothes. MST : You've learned with your mistakes..

GA :and we don't look at CSI series.

MST : It seems to me you had a lifetime chance as a criminal investigator, you had a difficult case to solve, no doubt about that, under worldwide attention because it immediately became global news, at a time with child abduction, paedophilia, you had a golden chance to shine personally, to bring your corporation into a good light...

GA : It wasn't a question of shining.MST : But you had 2 goals, find Maddie or discover what happened to her, you failed both, you failed your mission and you failed your chance.

GA : No, I gave my contribution to the investigation until I was no longer allowed to contribute and I can tell you that I was not alone in the investigation as the coordinator, GA, the director of Portimao who was alone in the charge of the investigation...

MST : But you were the public face of the investigation.

GA : No.

MST : You were the one who talked more about it.

GA : No, that public face was one they used in England, and here in Portugal also, I only spoke about the investigation when I left the police, until that I was spotted when going to my office, to lunch with colleagues and so on.

MST : Then I remove the charge on yourself, the team you conducted failed both goals, it didn't find the child nor what happened to her. GA : No.

MST : It's a fact isn't it?

GA : I'm not wanting to break the injunction, much evidence was gathered and I'm talking in good faith, I cannot speak about the book nor about what is in the documentary...

MST : But I can, I'm not forbidden to speak. When you talk about evidence, you speak about the hypothesis of her being killed by her parents, who hid her body.

GA : No, no I never said that.

MST : But it is in the book.

GA : But I didn't say that and there are articles that spoke on that matter and I never said that. What I say in the book, let me explain...

MST : but the book says this.

GA : It doesn't.

MST : The final conclusion is...

GA : No, no, then you have not read the book, this book here (on the table) is "A mordaça inglesa" and there is nothing there.

MST : Oh yes I have read the book, it finishes with 4 conclusions marked in black.

GA : Conclusions which don't talk of a manslaughter by the parents.

MST : I didn't say she was murdered by her parents, she can have been killed accidentally.

GA : No, no, accidentally is not killed by someone, an accident is an accident, it's not any murder.MST : It is involuntary homicide. Don't you say that they hid their daughter's body, is that not in your book? Is this not in your book?

GA : Here, Miguel, you are wrong, what is in the book is the narrative of six month of investigation, during which I was in charge, and the report concludes with certain suspicions that existed at that time and as you know, criminal investigation has a beginning, a middle and an end, and at that moment there were suspicions, which doesn't mean that later they couldn't be discarded, but...

MST : But the suspicions were mostly yoursGA : No, how could they only be mine..

MST : No no, the words are mine, the conclusions are mine, they come from your book and from the process.GA :You can infer them, I can't, you are putting words in my mouth, you are talking about the injunction, it is an interpretation of the book..

MST : It is an interpretation of the book, ok.GA : You're forbidden...MST : You receive the news, give the order to PJ vigil, go back home.

GA : Yes, like in any other case.

MST : You wake up in the morning, this is in your book, and the first thing that passes your mind is to ask the British who are the McCanns. And you start immediately to suspect..GA : But it's no suspecting, you're wrong. MST : And ask questions whether they abuse children, have a serious issue with the law, psychologically disorders, are in fact full time doctors in full time, and then, much ahead, you say it is common sense in these cases to suspect of the parents, so, you have not yet seen the McCanns, you have not yet been at the crime scene and you already suspect them !GA : Listen, it's normal practice to suspect, it's common sense, listen, doctor, you are making up stories here.

MST : No, I'm not, I read your book.

GA : The national and international rules in any case of that kind, and we were criticised by the FBI about this, are about suspecting or not of parents, or the close ones and I can tell you...

MST : At a determined moment, but first thing suspect them ?

GA : It's not the first suspicion, we have to know first who those people are. MST : Isn't it not more urgent to know if the borders were all closed ? Are all the marinas under surveillance? All the cars who left under control?

GA : But we knew. We took care of that. We cannot know all cars who left. And look, we reached the conclusion that for example the Via do Infante (Algarve Highway) had some TV cameras which didn't work, we talked with Spanish colleagues to control the border of Cádiz, in terms of access to Morocco, all those, Tenerife, and so on. MST : The marinas were not immediately controlled, I know someone who left for example of Lagos marina one day after, quietly.GA : But we had all that information. We knew that. From a place where some occurrence happens, we examine if there are CCTV or not, what can be seen and what cannot, all of that at the same time. Now saying that we aimed immediately to, it's not like that, that question about the parents, excuse me, that first question, that, was answered, it is the first, was never answered, it is the first, it is important to understand...

MST : Since the first day, anyone who read your book concludes immediately that...GA : But it has to be, this question has always to be asked.. MST : In the first meeting at the end of the first day, it is the strongest hypothesis you have..GA : This question is the first and was never answered.MST : I believe that it has to be done at a certain time of the investigation, but it is the first hypothesis of work and seems to be the only one.

GA : It's not

MST : It seems to be the only one.

GA : No it's not.

MST : It seems it is.

GA : Doctor, read the book.

MST : I read the book.

GA : Note that there are the investigations for the abduction, about the abduction what has been done.

MST : In terms of abduction, yes.

GA : The book talks about a Polish couple that was investigated, if you read well the book

MST : I read it.GA : I don't agree with the end of... (stops as if he couldn't say more), I don't agree, but even the McCanns don't talk about them and there are other situations. We have the book and we have the process, the book which I wrote, I was inside, this is the reason why I wrote it, I can explain it to you later, and there is the process which was been given to the journalists, the book is forbidden, the process is not, the process reaches the same conclusions of those first six months, but if you notice..

MST : No

GA : There are diligencies, if you notice...

MST : No.

GA :MST :Have you read the process?

MST : There are diligencies which have not been carried out because from the very beginning the hypothesis is that the parents are guilty.

GA : That's a lie, no, it's a lie and I'll tell you more...

MST : On the very first day the GNR dogs went there, all of them pointed to the car park..GA : Pointed to what?MST :The trail they followed stops at the car park. That lead points to a car that took the child out of there, and instead of (investigating) that, six months passed.. (1)GA : Sorry, points to a car, why ? Where did you read that in my book?

MST : No, this I didn't read in your book.

GA : But it is also in the book, the GNR dogs are good, these are sniffer dogs, what they followed was the trail of a living child, you understand, it was the route of a live child. Why do you say it is a car ?

MST : Why do you say that she was not alive?

GA : Excuse me, but how can you say it was a car, you don't know when it happened, one, two, three hours before...

MST : In a car park it is most likely that it was a car..GA : But it was the route that the menina followed..MST : I'm not an expert in criminal investigation, but the idea I have is that if you had started working seriously from the very beginning on the abduction hypothesis, the first suspicion had been that the child was taken away by car, instead of that..GA : There is a witness who even talks that the child went out in the opposite way. MST : Exactly, you gave her no credibility, she is an English friend of the McCanns and you gave no credibility to that witness.

GA : I didn't ?

MST : You gave no credit at all.

GA : It's possible, neither me, nor anyone else. That lady started by saying this, then that, then she changed this and modified that, and meanwhile the only thing she remembered was the hair, remember the e-fit with the hair which she completed until she reached the point of recognizing Robert Murat as the perpetrator. This kind of thing isn't acceptable. MST : The first person who suspected of Robert Murat is you, isn't it?GA : No, it's Jane Tanner.MST : It is you. You're the first. You're the first who goes there and decides to put him under surveillance. (2)

GA : It is Jane Tanner. You're wrong. It is Jane Tanner..

MST : But I don't want to talk about that suspect. Well, back to my story, this is a thesis like you have one, I think the story of the abduction was not investigated properly or enough..GA : Too much investigated.MST : Because the PJ was trapped by the other hypothesis..GA : No.MST : The most darkest theory of them all, that moreover contains a thing that I don't see any one able to explain : how a British couple, who is on vacation in the Algarve, who doesn't know the country, at night, between 9.30 and 10.00 pm, not knowing why, for what reason, on which purpose, in which circumstances, whether they wanted, not wanted, kills their daughter and makes the body disappear in half an hour and nobody find it ? Does it evaporate? GA : It's like this, the words "kill the daughter" are yours, not mine.

MST : They're mine.

GA :The period between 9.30 and 10.00 pm is indicated by the suspects...

MST : But they were in the restaurant where many witnesses, employees, were seeing them, even if they were all in... how can a body just disappear?

GA : Wait, let's talk about one thing, one thing in the report that for me is the principal error in the shelving of the process, let me remind your article of June of 21st that asked not to the shelve and was against it, and there I agree with you, though I don't agree with most part of the rest, but on the shelving issue I agree with you, a bit like what was mentioned before about the Public Ministry. The issue, and even the British reports of the NPIA...MST : Reports on how a body disappeared in half an hour in a foreign country at night?

GA : I'm going to answer, wait, what half an hour?MST : Half an hour.

GA : The child is seen by people independent from the couple at...

MST : 7.30

GA : At 17h35.MST : Yes. GA : And then an Irish couple saw someone with possibly the child, not sure, at 22h15, which suggests...

MST : Ah, then..

GA : Excuse me, which gives a window of opportunity to..

MST : This is your thesis...

GA : Mr. Gerald McCann, this is not my thesis, there are international rules...

MST : You cannot speak about your thesis, you're now telling me that is also possible to hypothetize that the child died between 17h35 and 22h.

GA : You limited (the window) to half an hour, and I'm not talking in death, if they killed, forget about that, what is the rule internationally...MST : So, if the child wasn't killed, what was it ? They abducted their own daughter?

GA : Wait, that's not what I was saying, what is known internationally and in terms of rules for investigation here in Portugal and in any country of the world and by British police, is that you can't trust the timetables provided by suspects, and that is why the Public ministry made a mistake in shelving the process. If you read the dispatch of the shelving, it says: the couple could not have done this or that at that time because they weren't there, but who gave that indication of that half an hour? It was Mr. Gerald McCann and Mrs. Kate McCann.

MST : And all the others, all the friends. GA : No, no, not all the friends.MST : They went to that apartment..

GA : Just to that apartment, there are seven children and only that flat...

MST : There are six friends dining plus an older lady, seven people who all say they go there every x minutes.

GA : No, it's like this : Mr. Matthew Oldfield, for example, said that he never saw the girl and says he entered in the apartment and didn't see her, now it's like this: I'm talking in general terms, I do not want to break any injunction, I must be careful with that, all I'm saying in technical terms, of police experts, in police terms, (times) cannot be trusted, it's in the reports, even the British police...

MST : One can't trust what the witnesses say, ok. GA : Not the witnesses, the suspects, don't you forget that !

MST : (mocking) But you determined them as suspects before they became suspects, it is what it seems to me, really, the idea you give is that they are immediately suspects..GA : But they're not...MST : You woke up the next day in the morning and without even having looked at their faces, you are already suspecting them..GA : But it's a golden rule...MST : Which golden rule ? I think the golden rule here is to start investigating, if there is evidence, then suspicions may arise, but before you have any evidence, there are already suspicions. GA : No, in international terms... We don't have many cases...

MST : Gonçalo Amaral, excuse me for that, but it seems to me that you started from a thesis and looked for evidence to confirm your thesis, instead of doing the other way round.

GA : You're wrong, on the contrary I can tell you something: in the beginning they said it was a case similar to another one, I said no... MST : Similar with the Joana Cipriano case...

GA : Not again...

MST :The case of Joana..

GA : And our mistake...

MST : Is equal...GA : No, it's not equal..

MST : You also investigated, also there was no body and you concluded that the mother and the brother did it.

GA : I didn't conclude it, it was the court of Portimão who concluded it and they were condemned.

MST : Let me ask you if you were convinced, I wasn't, I believe you were satisfied as an investigator that the court corroborated your thesis, right ? In the case of Joana...GA : But why my thesis ? It was the police...

MST : It was proved that she was beaten, that was judged also that she was beaten hard..

GA : Who was condemned?

MST : You were condemned with a suspended sanction, suspended not for beating her but for making false declarations about the case... GA : How did I make false declarations ? How do we come to this ? I'm going to explain it quickly...

MST : There was a judicial sentence, I'm guided by the sentence.

GA : No, I was heard always as a witness and one day (inaudible)...

MST : Let me ask you a question, do you think that in this country many people believes that Leonor Cipriano killed her daughter ?GA : I think so.MST : Very few people, Gonçalo Amaral, very few people.

GA : You think?

MST : How can a woman without any instruction, without any proof, who was beaten hard by the PJ...

GA : It wasn't proved that she was beaten, you are going to...

MST : How could she manage to be so clever that she kills her daughter, hides the body and the PJ couldn't get a single trace?GA : Not a single residue ? MST : Then months later exactly the same happens with a British couple. GA : A PJ didn't find any residue (in the Joana case) ? MST : Where is the body? GA : The inspection was carried 12 days after and taking into account the circumstances, there was blood, washing of the apartment itself, a person who never cleaned the house cleaned it at that time, there are a series of traces, if you want to talk about that case, let's talk of it, I mean..

MST : Something should exist for the court to condemn her, now there is also a revision of the sentence based on something...

GA : Yes the revision of the sentence was rejected.

MST : It was ? I didn't know that, look, I wish it had been, because that one doesn't convince me

GA : Why doesn't it convince you?MST : It doesn't convince me, because I have an a priori suspicionGA : On justice in this country.MST : No, about defendants sent to a court of justice after confessing to crimes made under beating, which is obvious, I cannot accept that, therefore, I suspect.

GA : But the lady confessed.

MST : Yes I think there is a confession.

GA : When was that ?

MST : There is a confession in the files, I don't know when. What I know is she (Leonor) was taken out of jail, during the night, she was taken back to the PJ facilities and they returned her beaten, it was during the night and besides it was participated by the director of the jail, right?GA : At night? Maybe it should have been examined better, because you know... if we are going to talk about this case, there's something essential...

MST : But we are not going to talk about Joana Cipriano, let's go back to the Maddie case.

GA : Let me mention it quickly, I was accused in this process of omission of denouncing and I ask: what did that lady (the jail's director) when she found someone coming from the PJ assalted. Why didn't she ask for medico-legal help ? Why didn't she inform the Public ministry, why did she ask a person dependent on her...MST : We don't have time, let's go back to the Maddie case..GA : Wait, let me finish this...MST : A conclusion, nothing more.GA : Why did she
ask a dependant employee to make a medical examination with a
psychiatric one, this is interesting, because there are experts in
Odemira and there are forensic experts. There was no necessity that a German psychiatrist
dependent on the director made examination.

MST : I'm not discussing the Joana case, I don't have time, what I want is the Maddie case, it is still actual, it didn't reach any conclusion, at the time of the Maddie case, the Times of London wrote something which I agree completely, it said like this..

GA : It's your opinion? I cannot give mine?

MST : About this you can give it, The Times said the Portuguese police continues to base the bulk of their investigations in the self-incrimination of arguidos, of suspects...

GA : That's a lie.

MST : Listen, or through phone tapping where they confess the crime, or through confessions....GA : I'm going to explain to you.. MST : Let me finish.. and I remembered this, because when you tell in the book that when Kate McCann was made arguida, there were great expectations that she'd confess spontaneously and she didn't confess and the husband didn't confess and then they returned to England, you became very disappointed because they returned to England, because from that moment on, they were not here for you to continue interrogate them...

GA : To England we already knew they were going... Our director (Alipio Ribeiro) found hasted the nomination as arguidos, but they were leaving and there are statements in that direction, but saying that...

MST : But it was a right they had.

GA : Yes, it was, completely.

MST : To whom read the news blown by the police and the media, by police obviously

GA : Why obviously? Why not by the Public ministry, by British police? MST : (mocking) By Public ministry, by British police. Its another opinion of mine. For you it seemed that the McCanns were suspects because they returned to England, they returned home five months later, whereas their function was to stay here to be interrogated, be interrogated by the PJ until they confessed something they never did, isn't that right?

GA : We are running out of time, you told me so, let's change the format, I'm going to tell you very quickly one important thing : as for the couple McCann, they only mentioned leaving on the day that British dogs arrived to Portugal and after Mr. Gerald McCann learnt the potentialities of those dogs, and to let everything clear and why I wrote the book...

MST : I don't see the connection, if they'd be in London, wouldn't the dogs act the same way?

GA : Here the dogs seem to have failed, it's because of the heat in Algarve.

MST : What difference can they make by being here or not, at the same time as the dogs?

GA : What difference? They knew what was going to happen next, until that, they walked holding hands and the PJ gave them information every week. But as this interview is close to the end and I think I have the right to tell something..MST : Tell it.

GA : I wrote that book, the truth of the lie, in the exercise of my freedom of speech like the judge told, because of the attacks towards me : they called me, the British press, 418 times shameful, 440 times outrageous, 140 times torturer, 45 times disabled, 37 times incompetent, 23 times libertine cop, 20 times sacked... MST : Let me tell you, I heard what you said..GA : When my freedom of speech is at stake, and when the Parliament discusses the issue of freedom of speech, as it occurred recently, and the discussion should be extended, because what's at stake here is not only my freedom of speech, it's the freedom of speech of the journalists and citizens of this country.

MST : (bored) Yes, yes, I heard, so, you made your statement, I only want a short answer to this question: imagine, imagine yourself, because I cannot imagine myself, that the McCanns are indeed innocent, imagine that they are under the excruciating pain of losing their daughter who was abducted, that they do not know what happened to her, they had still suffered the ignominy of seeing themselves considered suspects of having killed their daughter and hidden her corpse, have you already thought about that hypothesis? GA : I have already thought of that and thought of all hypotheses..

MST :And you sleep serenely, certain that this didn´t happened? GA : I do sleep, you know why? Who required the shelving of the process? You spoke of it in that Express article. The couple McCann. Who conformed with the shelving of the process? The couple McCann.

MST : excuse me but they are not conformed, I think that they want to reopen the process. GA : Excuse me but you don't know the rules. They could at that time have opened the instruction.MST : Dr. Amaral, I have to "shelve" the interview.GA : Sadly, sadly..